中外思維的差異使得我們在學習英語詞匯時容易產生錯誤理解，把中文背景帶到英文單詞中。不要緊，今天就跟著我們一起看看10大常錯詞，及時糾正錯誤觀念并牢牢記住吧！

 

 

What you think it means: Something that is funny.

你認為單詞的含義是：滑稽的事。

What it really means: Contrary to what you are expecting.

單詞的真正含義是：事與愿違的。

This is a famous one because so many people get this wrong so often. It’s also kind of hard to explain, so we’ll use an example. The Titanic was boasted about as being 100% unsinkable and then in 1912 it was sunk anyway. That is what is called cosmic irony. When a starving vegetarian eats a pepperoni pizza, that is what is called situational irony.

這是一個典型的單詞，因為經常有人用錯。解釋起來可能有點困難，所以我們還是舉例說明吧。泰坦尼克號號稱100%不會沉沒，但1912年它還是意外沉沒了，這就叫“宇宙反諷”。要是某個餓得不行的素食者忍不住吃了塊香腸披薩，那就叫“情境反諷”。

There are other kinds too, such as dramatic irony and Socratic irony. Believe it or not, sarcasm is actually irony. When you say something sarcastically, your tone and your words mean two opposite things. That is ironic. Irony can be funny but not everything funny is irony.

當然還有其他分類，比如“喜劇式反諷”和“蘇格拉底式反諷”。不管你信不信，irony其實和sarcasm（諷刺）是一個意思。當說到某件事很諷刺時，你的語調和用詞意在表達完全相反的兩種情況。這就是ironic（反諷）。反諷可以是滑稽的，但并不是所有滑稽的事都可以稱得上“反諷”。

 

 

What you think it means: A tragedy or something unfortunate.

你認為單詞的含義是：悲劇或不幸的事。

What it really means: A mockery or parody.

單詞的真正含義是：拙劣的模仿或惡搞。

This is another one that people have wrong fairly frequently. You’ve heard people call 9/11 a travesty. Truth be told 9/11 was a tragedy. A travesty is actually a mockery or a parody. One might say that a Weird Al Yankovic album is a travesty. With how often this word is associated with tragedy, we wouldn’t be shocked if that definition were eventually added as an acceptable meaning. Until then, it doesn’t mean anything bad happened.

 

這也是人們經常用錯的一個單詞。有人把9.11事件說成travesty，其實他是想說是個tragedy（悲劇）。Travesty其實是指拙劣的模仿或惡搞。你可以說艾爾•揚科維奇的專輯是travesty（惡搞的）。鑒于travesty這個單詞總是被人們和tragedy（悲劇）搞混淆，或許以后travesty里面也能加入“悲劇”的含義吧。不過到目前為止，這個單詞跟“不好的事情”完全扯不上關系。

 

 

What you think it means: The one, the only. The best.

你認為單詞的含義是：某個，唯一的，最好的。

What it really means: The last item of a list.

單詞的真正含義是：列表中的最后一項。

 

Some people do actually use this one properly. You may see someone list off a bunch of things and hear them say, “Okay, at the store we need eggs, milk, juice, and ultimately, butter.” That is actually the proper use of ultimate. There is no other context or added context. It simply means the last one.

確實也有人能夠正確使用這個單詞。你或許看到過別人寫出一串列單，然后聽到他們說：“嗯……我們要去商店買點雞蛋、牛奶、果汁，最后（ultimately）還有黃油。”這才是ultimate的正確使用方法。這里不存在其他內容或補充內容，ultimate就表示“最后一個”。

 

 

What you think it means: To have a conversation.

你認為單詞的含義是：進行交談。

What it really means: Nothing.

單詞的真正含義是：壓根沒有這個詞。

Conversate actually doesn’t exist and I’ll prove it to you. Go into a program that underlines words with red if they’re spelled wrong. Now type out conversate. Did you see the red line? Conversate was meant to be a mixture of conversation and converse and be used as a verb. However, converse is a verb and there really isn’t a need for a second verb to describe the same action.

Conversate這個單詞其實是不存在的，這我可以證明。找個能標紅錯誤拼寫的程序，然后輸入conversate這個單詞，你應該能看到這個單詞被標了紅色下劃線吧？conversate應該是conversation（交談）和converse（交談）的混合詞，詞性是動詞。可是，converse（交談）本身就是動詞，根本就沒必要再造一個動詞來描述同一個行為了。

 

 

What you think it means: To skim or browse.

你認為單詞的含義是：略讀或瀏覽。

What it really means: To observe in depth.

單詞的真正含義是：深入觀察。

When you peruse something, you are actually taking a very close look at it. When you’re at a record store and you’re just running through a stack of records, you are just browsing. If you pick up a record and look at the artist, track list, and additional information on the back, then your are perusing.

當你peruse（深入觀察）某事物時，說明你看得非常仔細。假設你在唱片店穿過一排排的唱片架，那就是“瀏覽”。如果你拿起一張唱片查看背后的藝術家、目錄和其他信息，那就叫peruse（深入觀察）了。

 

 

What you think it means: Amused.

你認為單詞的含義是：愉快的。

What it really means: Confused.

單詞的真正含義是：困惑的。

This is one of the many words on this list that will make you strongly dislike the English language. Despite looking all but identical to the word amused, bemused doesn’t even come close to meaning the same thing. If you are bemused then you are actually confused.

這個單詞可能本清單中“榮膺”讓你討厭英語的原因之一。盡管bemused（困惑的）在拼寫上跟amused（愉快的）很相似，但這兩個單詞的含義卻并不一樣。如果你bemused，說明你其實很困惑。

 

 

What you think it means: To do something voluntarily by choice.

你認為單詞的含義是：志愿選擇做某事。

What it really means: To be forced or obligated to doing something.

單詞的真正含義是：被迫或有義務做某事。

This is one that people get wrong and it’s rather understandable. The real definition is very close to the definition people generally use. The difference is the motivation. When people say compelled, they think the person wants to perform the action. In fact, they are forced to do it regardless of their personal feelings. Here’s an example. When you’re in court, you are compelled to give honest testimony. You may not want to, but it doesn’t matter because you have to.

這個單詞被人們搞錯其實倒也情有可原。它的真實定義和人們通常誤用的含義很接近，但區別就在于動機如何。當說到compelled（被迫）時，人們以為說話者想做某事，但實際上，說話者是有違自身情緒而被迫去做某事的。舉個例子，在出庭時，你就是compelled（被迫）如實作證的，你可能心里不情愿，但不管怎樣你只能這么做。

 

 

What you think it means: To feel ill.

你認為單詞的含義是：感覺不舒服。

What it really means: To cause feelings of illness.

單詞的真正含義是：令人不舒服的。

This is another understandable mishap that a lot of people make. If you actually feel sick then you are nauseated. The object that made you feel ill is nauseous. Here’s how this works. If you’re at an amusement park and you’re sitting next to a full trash can, the fumes from the trash may make you feel ill. That means the fumes from the trash can are nauseous because they are making you feel nauseated.

許多人用錯這個單詞也是情有可原的。如果你果真感到不舒服，那么你會nauseated（作嘔），讓你感到不舒服的東西是nauseous（作嘔的）。請看下面的例子。假設你坐在游樂園一個滿滿的垃圾桶旁邊，垃圾桶里冒出的煙霧讓你感到不舒服。這就是說，垃圾桶里冒出的煙霧是nauseous（令人作嘔的），因為它讓你感到nauseated（作嘔）。

 

 

What you think it means: Repetitive.

你認為單詞的含義是：重復的。

What it really means: Unnecessarily excessive.

單詞的真正含義是：過剩的。

This one is tough because you can use it wrong but unintentionally use it right. When you repeat something a bunch of times, it can become redundant, but redundant expands far beyond just repeating things over and over. A popular thing companies are doing now is firing people but instead of calling it “getting fired,” they call it “eliminating redundancies.” The premise being that the employee they’re firing is unnecessary and excessive and they are thus eliminating them. In pretty much any scenario where there is simply too much of something, it is redundant.

這個單詞有點復雜，因為你可能總會用錯，卻也不一定什么時候就用對了。當你不斷重復某事很多次后，事情可能就會變得redundant（多余的），但是redundant這個詞所包含的意思遠不止“不斷重復”。當下公司都很流行解聘雇員，但他們不會說“炒你魷魚”，而是稱之為“裁員”；但前提是，被裁的員工是可有可無的、多余的，這樣就可以裁掉了。在很多情況下，如果某事太多太剩，那就是redundant（多余的）了。

 

 

What you think it means: Huge, enormous.

你認為單詞的含義是：巨大的，龐大的。

What it really means: Profoundly immoral or evil.

單詞的真正含義是：極其不道德的或邪惡的。

Don’t beat yourself up over this one because no one knows this one off the top of their head. Enormity sounds like enormous and as with many of our other examples, here we expect words that sound alike to have similar meanings. Enormity simply means really evil. An example of how to use it is the following: “The enormity of the crimes committed by the Nazis in World War II.” It doesn’t mean the enormous crimes, it means the heinous crimes.

不要因為用錯這個單詞而自責，因為沒多少人能不假思索地知道這個單詞。Enormity（窮兇惡極）的發音和enormous（龐大的）比較相近，正如先前提過的許多例子一樣，對于發音相似的單詞，人們也很容易認為它們的意思也一樣。Enormity是指“極其邪惡”。舉個例子來說明如何使用這個單詞吧。“納粹分子在二戰中犯下的罪行是enormity（窮兇惡極的）。”它不是說enormous（龐大的）罪行，而是指十惡不赦的罪行。